The goal-over-source principle in European languages
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Annemarie Verkerk
Abstract
This paper investigates the linguistic encoding of source, trajectory, and goal in seventeen European languages. The data comes from translations of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in the ParaSol parallel corpus. The original English text and all translations display more frequent marking of goal than of source or trajectory and thus conform to the goal-over-source principle identified by Ikegami (1987). This goal bias is explained by a translation strategy where goal information is expanded upon to the demise of trajectory information, as goal information is most important for following the narrative. An attempt is made to explain cross-linguistic differences in path encoding using phylogenetic comparative methods, but unfortunately the dataset is too small to allow for generalizations.
Abstract
This paper investigates the linguistic encoding of source, trajectory, and goal in seventeen European languages. The data comes from translations of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in the ParaSol parallel corpus. The original English text and all translations display more frequent marking of goal than of source or trajectory and thus conform to the goal-over-source principle identified by Ikegami (1987). This goal bias is explained by a translation strategy where goal information is expanded upon to the demise of trajectory information, as goal information is most important for following the narrative. An attempt is made to explain cross-linguistic differences in path encoding using phylogenetic comparative methods, but unfortunately the dataset is too small to allow for generalizations.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Abbreviations vii
- Space in Diachrony xi
- The goal-over-source principle in European languages 1
- Overlaps in spatial encodings 41
- Ablative and allative marking of static locations 67
- How should a “classical” Satellite-Framed Language behave? 95
- Differential Goal marking vs. differential Source marking in Ancient Greek 119
- New evidence for the Source–Goal asymmetry 147
- A diachronic take on the Source–Goal asymmetry 179
- Spatial interrogatives 207
- Asymmetries between Goal and Source prefixes in Spanish 241
- Asymmetries in path encoding in Sicilian 281
- Source-oriented and Goal-oriented events in Old and Modern French 305
- Source-Location ambiguity and incipient decline in the recent evolution of the English directional particle away 329
- Prepositional phrase vs. bare instrumental 347
- Language index 369
- Subject index 371
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Abbreviations vii
- Space in Diachrony xi
- The goal-over-source principle in European languages 1
- Overlaps in spatial encodings 41
- Ablative and allative marking of static locations 67
- How should a “classical” Satellite-Framed Language behave? 95
- Differential Goal marking vs. differential Source marking in Ancient Greek 119
- New evidence for the Source–Goal asymmetry 147
- A diachronic take on the Source–Goal asymmetry 179
- Spatial interrogatives 207
- Asymmetries between Goal and Source prefixes in Spanish 241
- Asymmetries in path encoding in Sicilian 281
- Source-oriented and Goal-oriented events in Old and Modern French 305
- Source-Location ambiguity and incipient decline in the recent evolution of the English directional particle away 329
- Prepositional phrase vs. bare instrumental 347
- Language index 369
- Subject index 371
